


Down and Down and Down

by michals



Category: Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/M, M/M, Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-17
Updated: 2012-08-17
Packaged: 2017-11-12 07:31:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/488296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/michals/pseuds/michals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the kink_meme prompt: <i>Benji reminds Ethan of Jack. Jane reminds Ethan of Nyah. Brandt reminds Ethan of Lindsey. </i>(Ended up being Brandt/Ethan and sort-of Ethan/everyone)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Down and Down and Down

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt wasn't specifically Brandt/Ethan, but that's just how my brain works, hope the OP is okay with that, heh. 
> 
> This is fairly angsty, I can't help it, Ethan does this to me. Fic makes much more sense if you've seen the other M:I movies. 
> 
> Title is from a song by Marshall Crenshaw called 'Goddammit I Hate Naming Fics More Than I Hate Most Things I Would Rather Throw Myself off a Bridge Oh Hey Let's Pick Song Lyrics at Random That Works.'

It's not the way she looks, it's not the way she moves. Jane is not like Nyah in most ways. Nyah was round and soft, so deceptive in her looks, so easy to hide the knife sharpness beneath. Jane is angles and smokey eyes, a storm raging underneath her skin. Nyah was sly and sleek, a cocked eyebrow and an up turned mouth, every advance met with a parry, every thrust met with equal measure. Jane isn't his opponent, her fight is his fight.

He imagines they kiss the same. Nyah met his lips with an aching tenderness, caught him off guard with her sweetness, her eagerness. A woman so strong and bold and with such soft lips. One stolen kiss in India isn't enough to tell Ethan much, but how vulnerable and gentle Jane's eyes had looked as he pulled away said volumes. He saw Nyah in front of him, so beautiful at the start of it, looking up at him begging to be kissed again. 

But he won't, because Jane isn't Nyah. And he's not Trevor Hanaway. He doesn't ask but guesses that Jane was seeing her own ghosts in that moment too. That kiss is the end of it, and Ethan doesn't get his answer - if Jane truly loves like Nyah would. Sometimes he'll look up and catch a flip of hair, a flutter of eyelashes, and she is Nyah again, sometimes her soft voice - even without the accent - reminds him of warm nights in Spain, the smell of her, the feel of her body against his. But it passes quickly and he's left with a bitter memory of waking up alone, minus one Rolex watch.

-

Jack was his friend, his deadpan, sarcastic humor had Ethan trying to hide a smile during missions constantly. And Jim would give them a look and they'd shy and back down like schoolboys. They came into it together, they thought they'd go out of it together - despite the odds. 

Sometimes Ethan feels like he's Benji's personal version of James Bond, and imagines himself as Q. It's too much to live up to, and Ethan may have the corny lines down, but even at his best he's never managed a Gypsy threesome, and Q never followed 007 out into the field. 

Their friendship is messy, more time spent communicating over comms than face-to-face, too little time to find their footing, thrown together more than once and fumbling to make it click. They do manage, probably to the surprise of most, and it's a gun cobbled together out of spare parts that still manages to shoot. 

He and Jack never crossed that line. There were nights after missions, exhausted they'd collapse into the same hotel bed, friendly meetings between jobs where they'd huddle together over beers at a bar, so close Ethan could feel the heat of his skin, after some dangerous stunt Jack coming up to him and slinging his arms around his middle, calling him an idiot and laughing, relieved. 

Benji gives him a look like sometimes his hero worship may have strayed, a forced breath that he thinks he hides, but Ethan's too good at what he does to not notice. He wonders himself too, every once in a while. Benji'd probably be eager and nervous, wrap his arms around him and Ethan could imagine it was Jack for just a little while.

But it doesn't happen. Because occasionally Benji still gets a smile out of him when his accidental humor comes over the comm, because he's the first to suggest going for a drink at a mission's end, because no matter how well they have turned their mismatched personalities into a working team, he is not James Bond.

And because the echo of Jim's voice saying, "Man down" sometimes still wakes him up at night.

-

Lindsey didn't have any time. That's the real pain of it. She was so clever, so capable, so ready to be the best agent the IMF had ever seen. It was bad luck that followed her in Owen Davian's hands, and no one can convince him otherwise. 

William Brandt is miles away from her in his mind. He is not even her opposite, their images so separate from each other - until Will looks up at him with a crooked smile, eyes sharp and deep and so knowing, and Ethan has to catch his breath against the sudden flood that threatens to drown him.

For days the hurt won't shake. He sees Lindsey in the things Will says, his cynical humor, the way he stands at attention - so small and reserved and yet incapable of completely hiding the strength of them - the way he fights, the way he thinks, the way he laughs and breathes air. The eyes that Ethan can't meet without feeling deep in the heart of him, a look that says he understands, that he might actually _know_ Ethan. 

Days later he's at Will's door, hood up against the rain and Will answers half-dressed. His expression is questioning, wary, aware of the distance that's grown between them suddenly, and even that's too much for Ethan and he erases it with a forceful kiss.

He had one night with Lindsey. She tasted like sweat and gunpowder, felt like a coiled wire under his hands, ready to lash out, push and pull him and wrap herself around tight. Things with Julia were still new, still fresh, still unburdened with sex. Lindsey kissed like a punch, knocked all the air from his lungs and trusted him to keep up. They ended up with bruises, marks across their skin that lingered in the afterward, he looked at her in the dim light through her bedroom window and she gave him that crooked smile. She understood.

Lindsey was part of a life he was leaving behind. It was already fading in the rearview mirror as soon as he met Julia. He could have been in love with Lindsey - he's certain that he really was and just told himself otherwise - but he really was in love with Julia, in love with the way she rolled her eyes at him, how she bought him books of poetry for his birthday and how she'd read them to him with his head in her lap, with the way her hair fell over her face and with her musical laugh. If he'd met Lindsey at another time, in another place, they'd have ended the world together, but Julia was a new life.

And then Lindsey was gone.

Will doesn't feel like wire, he doesn't taste like gunpowder. He doesn't wrap his arms around Ethan and hold him tight, he doesn't kiss like he's begging. He guides Ethan to his bedroom, removes his clothes like he's trying to be careful, takes his face in his hands and kisses him and Ethan nearly sobs at the yearning in it. Will doesn't rush, opens him up so slowly Ethan's eventually pleading to just fuck him, _please Will, God please_.

Will moves like a wave over him and Ethan goes under again, lost in the flood, ready to drown, but Will's persistant kisses won't let him go and his voice calls him back up, and Will's forcing him to look at him and Ethan comes staring into Will's eyes.

Will wants to save him. They haven't talked about it but Croatia's as much a scar now as it ever was, Ethan's not naive enough to imagine one conversation's enough to replace all that worry, all that fear. Bad luck, and no one will convince Ethan otherwise. Ethan doesn't wish his fate on anyone, except maybe only the most deserving of terrorists and madmen, and yet here he's found someone else that's damaged, someone else who smiles the same way. But he's trying to save _Ethan_. That's the scar, that's what lingers, that Ethan didn't leave, Ethan didn't die, and Will still touches him whenever he can, touches him like he's delicate, like Will might still lose him, and he just might. 

There's a list being repeated behind Ethan's eyelids, a far off voice whispering in his ear, the faded memory of so many faces...

Will brushes away the tear before Ethan even realizes it's fallen. When Ethan opens his eyes again there's no crooked smile on Will's lips, no coy or hidden thing in his gaze. Blue light spills across his open face as he watches and waits. 

Ethan wants to run - he had with Lindsey. Left her with an excuse on his lips and hurt in her eyes. Next time he saw her she was beaten and bloody, and she died in his arms. The memory stills feels like a knife in his heart, the way her body jerked, her eyes turned cold; it looked so painful. He never apologized, he never told her the truth, there was just no time.

Will pushes his hair out of his face, runs a gentle finger across his lips, looks at him not in an idolizing way, but reverential and fond. Wors die on Ethan's lips and he sucks in a deep breath, blinks his eyes, but Will's expression never changes and Ethan finds no ghosts in his eyes. Will kisses him again, kisses him like Ethan's the pinpoint center of his world and he's grateful, and Ethan no longer feels like he's surrounded. 

Ethan turns into Will's arms, buries his face into his neck and Will holds him so close and Ethan prays - against the bad luck that dogs his every step, that seems to have found Will all the same, that maybe he'll get to sleep through the night and his head won't explode with noise, Ethan prays just this once, for time.


End file.
